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One out of 10 physicians said they had told a patient something untrue in the previous year, according to a 2009 survey of 1,891 practicing physicians nationwide.1
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Over half (55%) of physicians told a patient that his or her prognosis was more positive than the medical facts warranted within the previous year, according to a survey conducted in 2009 of almost 2,000 physicians in seven specialties.
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Low-income patients are less likely to sue physicians than patients with higher incomes, according to an analysis of litigation rates and medical malpractice claims.
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Careful stewardship of scarce resources remains an ethical obligation of physicians, but avoiding harm to patients is a higher priority, argues Howard Brody, MD, PhD, John P. McGovern Centennial Chair in Family Medicine and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
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If a genetic test reveals a patient is at high risk for cancer, the ordering physician may think it's important for this information to be shared with others in the family, but the patient may think otherwise.
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Tenet Healthcare Corp. has agreed to pay the United States $42.75 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by overbilling the federal Medicare program, the Justice Department has announced.
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South Shore Hospital in Boston has agreed to pay $750,000 to resolve allegations that it failed to protect the personal and confidential health information of more than 800,000 consumers, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced recently.
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The California Department of Insurance has saved doctors and other medical providers $23 million in just two months by reducing unjustified medical malpractice insurance premiums using the state's prior approval rate regulation authority.
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Telemedicine is becoming more common all the time, but risk managers might not be keeping up with all the new challenges that come along with the new technology. The use of telemedicine across state lines, in particular, raises some tricky risk management issues.